Our media, our free press: Is it failing? What can you do?
Thursday, May 20, 2010 at 21:06 When was the last time you heard a really big story covered on the mainstream nightly news - that hadn’t already been covered, better, sooner on NPR? I think we could count them on one hand, waking up to NPR every morning, hearing the real news - all the news - and then wondering how the big networks can miss so much.
When we read the ever shrinking Reno newspaper, the Gazette-Journal, we’re also amazed at how many things in the community aren’t covered, or are covered inadaquately.
Radio? What now passes for radio in America is shameful. It’s a sound machine made of right-wing propagandists and ideologues, the like of Howard Stern and host of wannabes, and programmed second tier pop music.
Internet? America has some of the slowest broadband in the world. So much for being the technological leader.
Comcast is on a juggernaut course to slurp up the rest of what remains of broadcast and internet - dooming any hope of maintaining internet neutrality.
Two of the best, albeit nascent publications, The Nation magazine and Reader Supported News are struggling.
Meanwhile, the media and internet in America is owned by fewer and fewer companies, as the entire thing continues to consolidate. There is less diversity. There is less freedom of opinion and expression. The messages are distorted, real information is in short supply.
